Land of Azulejos

This post is dedicated to mi amiga Shannon Sullivan! Shannon and I went to Ball State University together and one of the highlights of our relationship was sharing a trundle bed on Spring Break 2012. After then, Shannon is taking a European tour and basically living the life. She was nice enough (and lucky enough) to make a stop in Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela to visit me! Northern Spain is not the typical Spain people think of when hearing about Spain. Although there might not be an abundance of flamenco music and it's not always sunny all the time, there are advantages of living in Northern Spain. An abundance of bagpipe music for one, and also living very close to Portugal.
Shannon and I took a trip to the city of Porto, Portugal and had trundle bed reunion 2! We city was beautiful and there were many aspects that we enjoyed:

Tiled sidewalks

Funny statues

Cool graffiti

 We took the route of being tourists supreme, and got a special package of a tour bus, boat tour and wine cave tour. Porto is famous for making Port wine, the sweet dessert wine. I think we caught the best glances of Porto on our touristy weekend, seeing the coast, the city and all the tiled buildings we could.

The thing I liked most about Porto was all the buildings made out of tiles or azulejos. Houses, churches and even the train station were constructed with beautiful designs and colors. The blue and white tile designs like the one above and below were the most popular to see in Porto.

Other random facts about Porto is that it is known to have a symbol of a rooster, and there is a famous legend that goes along with that. You will find an abundance of colorful rooster towels, tiles and memorabilia. Also, Porto has great looking fruit. At the open market they have each day, I tasted the best fresh strawberries I ever had.

We eventually had to say goodbye to Porto when the weekend was over.

Shannon has been in Santiago three weeks with me, and when she lives this Thursday Santiago and all my students will miss her. I love you Shan!